in The Farm (Moderator: farmguy)

I recently moved to the area and worked at trek as a temp for a little while before finding a different job.
While I worked here one of the employees told me about "The Farm" and I had previously seen videos of
it on youtube and it looked awesome to me. With a day off of work and nothing but time to kill I went on
an adventure to find "The Farm". I was successful in doing so a decided to check out the trails for a little
bit. As soon as I came back to my car after about 15 minutes (the trails were to muddy to enjoy) some
guy backed down the road in his ford explorer, hopped out, didn't introduce himself, asked me if i had a
trail pass, if I was a trek employee, etc. He then continued to tell me their was no way of getting a trail
pass, told me to leave and took a picture of my car.

With that being said my first impression of "The Farm" was over all a bad one. But I understand that people
have bad days and are just plain rude sometimes. So I forgive him and I'm here to see if their actually is a
way of receiving a trail pass. I've heard that their could be a waiver, a minimum of 8 hours volunteering to
clean up the trail or have to be accompanied by a trek employee?

Anyways I'm out here just trying to ride some trails and have some fun like everyone else. Plus I live like 3
miles away from "The Farm" so its really convenient too.

This might take some clarification. There are actually two trails in the area that are called "The Farm". The one CORP manages (ours was first  ) you certainly can gain access to ride. It is located to the west of Madison. It is on Greg Haack's farm, a member of CORP. The reason it is not published is per his request and protection from personal liability as the trail are located on his land. CORP will gladly relay the location of this trail to anyone contributing to the club. If you poach a ride here you will get an invite to a trail work day  :D

The other farm is located near Waterloo, WI. It is owned and managed by Trek. For their liability and protection this trail system is limited to employees of Trek. The only exceptions are getting a personal invite to ride with a Trek employee, or for very special occasions. For instance, CORP hosted the IMBA Regional Conference last year, and we held a special event there. Also the Wisconsin School Cycling League will be holding a training session at these trails next week. You could sign up to be a coach this year, attend the weekend of training, and viola you are invited to ride! Simple! They will prosecute people who try to poach a ride there. Which is understandable for liability reasons.

From your post I have no idea which farm you were at.

Welcome! The Trek trails... Kind of a touchy subject, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure you have to work at Trek or be invited. The latter happens occasionally. The trails are private and so they make the rules.

Also, you probably added insult to injury by riding on them when muddy. In this area (S WI) it is frowned upon to ride in the mud because it leaves ruts that can and will cause even more damage over time.

The trails at CamRock are pretty fun and fairly close by if you're on that end of the county. There's also stuff happening in Sun Prairie. Check out our other trails, too.  Keep an eye on the calendar, any of those events are a good place to meet people... Especially the work days.

So there are 2 mountain bike trails in Dane co. referred to as the farm? Both on private property, both secret? Weird...
I was on trek's trails. Which one has the wood section with the jumps and stuff? huh, ill have to check this one out to!

Yes there's Trek's farm and the CORP farm. I've never been to Trek's but I've heard it's pretty nice and polished, and that's the one you rode I'm sure. The other farm is pretty nice also. It used to be required to attend a work day before you could ride there, not sure if that's still the case.

If you don't work there, don't ride there. You're looking to get yourself in trouble.

As a former full-time Trek employee I can tell you poaching the private trails is a serious problem. Crossing the rairoad tracks is ilegal and gets Trek in trouble, non-employees are a liability and tresspassing is also illegal. Non-authorized entry ruins it for everyone. There are legit ways to ride there,  but face it not everyone is entitled to eveything.